New Features in SQL Server 2008

Data Compression wizard
By Data Compression wizard configuration is easy and it helps to save disk storage, for each and every individual tables or indexes compression option is enabled, compression can improve disk I/O and memory utilization.

Upgrade Adviser
These reports provide links to technical information that assist in addressing upgrade problems and it provides administrators detailed information that can be used to prepare for upgrades.

Server Group Management
Here servers do not need to be configured individually, due to management is centralized. Stream results of multi-server queries into a single result set or into multiple result sets are possible.

Data Auditing
By this new feature we can audit logons, password changes, data access and modification etc. audit results can be saved in to file or in to the Windows Security or Application logs for later analysis or archiving.

Streamlined Installation
Independent SQL Server components, such as Database Services, Analysis Services, and Integration Services, can be optionally selected for installation. SQL Server 2008 installation process is to be easier and more efficient.

Table-Valued Parameters
To the Developers it reduces complexity and simplifies the process of working with data sets and data tables. It allows stored procedures to accept and return lists of parameters so here Developers can write applications that pass sets of data into stored procedures rather than just one value at a time.

CLR Enhancements
User-defined aggregates (UDAs) and User-defined types (UDTs) now enhanced up to 2GB of data and can accept multiple inputs. Using UDAs and UDTs with larger data since 8KB size limit restriction has been removed.

Design Alerts
Design mistakes are underlined in blue; this is similar to spelling mistakes are underlined in red in Microsoft Word. And now we can see the full explain of warning by placing our arrow on the underlined object, and can disable AMO warnings if you choose.

External Key Management
It gives option to storing the keys separately from the data which ensures to more extensible and robust security architecture so helps organizations comply with data privacy regulations.

DATE / TIME Data Types
DATETIME2 refer Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) instead of the system time for greater accuracy and the new DATETIMEOFFSET data type gives time zone support by storing date, time and offset such as ‘plus 5 hours’.